Shadow sounds : an original collection of poetry and an essay on questions of femaleness and diaspora in Meena Alexander's Illiterate heart.

Abstract

Shadow Sounds: an Original Collection of Poetry and an Essay on Questions of Femaleness and Diaspora in Meena Alexander’s Illiterate Heart. The thesis comprises two parts: an original collection of poetry entitled Shadow Sounds, and a critical essay exploring the issues of diaspora and femaleness in Meena Alexander‟s Illiterate Heart. Shadow Sounds is a compilation of poems which examines the interrelations of a South African Indian familial structure, the emergence of a strong female sexual identity, and the open, even experimentally processual approach which influences the exploration of lyric voicing. The critical essay on Alexander investigates two major thematic concerns in the collection Illiterate Heart, namely, diaspora and gender. I postulate that the diasporic experiences of the writer have inflected all aspects of her identity, occasioning both rhizomatic compositions and the ongoing composition of a dispersed subjectivity. Alexander‟s hypothesised „selves‟ are observed and identified as constantly shifting and changing throughout Illiterate Heart, and effectively recast the popular conceptualisation of identity as singular and coherent.